Straight, No Chaser: End of Life Decision Making

Do you have a living will? Do you know what advance directives are? Have you assigned a healthcare power of attorney? For the overwhelming majority of you who do not, I hope to turn those answers to “Yes.” I’m not talking about anyone’s fictitious “death panels.” What I’m describing are the legal tools at your disposal that enable you to control the circumstances surrounding your death. Please understand that at any age your life could be at risk, you could die, and you could need someone comply with decisions; as such, you need to be protected now. You’re much more protected having declared your interests and desires than not. Read on. Simply put, advance directives should result after a thoughtful conversation between you and your loved one(s) and, subsequently, with your healthcare provider. Advance directives document your preferences on what specific decisions should and shouldn’t be made in an effort to save your life or allow your life to end. Here are some of the decisions that can be covered by advanced directives. They don’t all have to be addressed. You may just include the ones of interest to you, leaving discretion to your physicians and/or family just as may have occurred, say, when you weren’t in a coma.

Do you care to be intubated? The use of breathing tubes to either protect your airway or breathe for you when you’re unable to is a big deal. The decision to accept or forego this might be an immediately life-prolonging or life-ending decision.

Do you care to have advanced cardiac life support in the event that your heart either stops or is unstable? As with intubation, there’s an immediacy to this decision that’s better addressed in a moment of quiet reflection than in the emotion of crisis.

Do you want transfusions of blood or other blood products? Some religions have strong declarations on the topic. If you haven’t made your decision not to receive blood known in a legal document and you are unable to express that decision in a life or death situation, physicians will try to save your life with an infusion. They will not adhere to your choice, because they won’t know what it is. That doesn’t have to happen.

Do you want “every possible thing done for you,” or might there be a limit in the face of perceived medical futility (i.e., minimal chance of any success)? Basically, this question gets at whether you’d like to go in peace or in a blaze of resuscitative glory and heroic effort.

If you’re in the midst of a terminal illness and/or are comatose with no perceptible chance of recovery, will you want medicines and treatments (such as dialysis to remove toxins from your body) to ease pain and suffering or will you want to be allowed to expire?

Will you want the medical staff to feed you if you can’t feed yourself?

Will you want to donate your organs?

As you can see, these are serious questions to consider, and I’d hope you’d agree they are worthy of conversation well in advance of a tragedy. In my next post, I’ll discuss some related logistical considerations around end-of–life care and decision-making. I hope this has gotten you to thinking and planning on having important conversations.